


don't break me

by papparadise



Category: SKAM (France)
Genre: Angst, Depression, Eventual Fluff, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, I hope, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, There will be comfort, Yes it Is, is this just me finding a way to process my own feelings?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-11 22:55:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29375289
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papparadise/pseuds/papparadise
Summary: Sometimes you wake up, and you wish you weren’t alive.According to Eliott, at least.
Relationships: Eliott Demaury/Lucas Lallemant
Comments: 2
Kudos: 32





	don't break me

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story about learning to date someone with depression. I haven't finished learning yet, so the story isn't finished yet. I'm just trying my hardest to avoid the "depressed character gets a hug and realises everything will be okay" trope, because it's not true, and the solution is not that easy to find, and sometimes you start to wonder if there isn't one. But I will not stop trying.

Sometimes you wake up, and you wish you weren’t alive.

According to Eliott, at least.

Lucas couldn’t wrap his head around the sentence, couldn’t find the function of the words. Of all things, this wasn’t one he’d been expecting to hear over a bowl of overcooked pasta late on a Saturday night.

He’d been drinking - they both had - and a half finished glass of rum sat on the table, with Eliott’s fingers twisted around it. Lucas had been watching a drop run down the side, gathering speed, when Eliott said it.

“Sometimes, Lu, you wake up, and you wish you weren’t alive.”

He slurred it with a strange upwards lilt, as if intrigued by his own thoughts. Lucas, unable to meet his eyes, felt a sudden urge to vomit.

Their night had started off well, a relaxing evening at home after a long week. They’d been buzzing on rum and weekend highs, when jarringly, somewhere between the third and the fourth glass - Lucas forgot - Eliott’s mood had dropped, like a light being switched off. The slumbering sadness of his eyes, usually masked by a bright twinkle, bled out over the rest of his face, deep smudges suddenly obvious beneath his eyelids.

“But you can’t not be alive, so you have to go on existing, with this deep urge - to die.”

The drop of rum finally reached the bottom of the glass, colliding silently with the table surface.

Lucas wanted to take Eliott in his arms, and hit him. He wanted to throw him on the ground and scream at him to stop talking, _just stop talking like this_ , he wanted to wrap his fingers around Eliott’s and _squeeze_ them until they stopped feeling like fingers at all. He wanted to rip out his own heart and stamp on it and hand it to Eliott, mangled. 

He couldn't, of course, do any of those things. He felt his foot begin to tap against the floor. 

Eliott appeared steady, leaning backwards in his chair as if relaxing, but Lucas could feel the very slight vibration of the table that betrayed the trembling of his limbs. He wanted to reverse the time backwards, crawl back to the place they were ten minutes ago, before Eliott disappeared into the dark abyss of his own head. 

It wasn’t the first time he’d seen Eliott like this - he’d witnessed Eliott’s depressive episodes plenty of times - but he’d rarely seen him so vocally despondent. There was something different this time, something tangibly wrong. Logically, Lucas knew it was probably the alcohol coursing through Eliott’s system, making him divulge things that were normally dormant - but then again, Lucas reminded himself bitterly, this didn’t make them any less true. It’s just that sober Eliott was considerate enough to hide them from Lucas. 

Which, if anything, made it hurt more.

“And sometimes, Lucas, sometimes you just feel so wrong.” Eliott’s lips parted in a sharp laugh, and Lucas flinched, grabbed at his own hands.

It’s not funny, he thought. 

“You feel so wrong, that you want to break yourself.”

He watched as Eliott’s knuckles turned white, his fingers twisting harder against the glass, half-empty. His thumb slipped on the condensation. 

“You want to break your fingers, one by one. Sometimes, Lu, sometimes I want to force my own arms till they break.”

Lucas’ stomach flipped with rising nausea. He forced himself to look up at Eliott again, finding him staring off into the middle distance. A frown was growing on his forehead, deep lines appearing like cracks. Lucas felt his throat beginning to burn and realised he was on the verge of crying, tensing his whole body tightly as if that would hold back the tears. He just wished he knew what to say, what to do. 

Eliott slumped forward suddenly, almost knocking his glass off the table as he reached out for Lucas. A dazed smile forced its way onto his face, and he lifted his eyes, glassy. A quiver of his head made his hair tremble as he spoke.

“But you know what? Sometimes I don’t _fucking_ care.” 

His smile grew, cheeks tilting up insincerely beneath cold eyes. An empty laugh broke halfway out of his throat, but was swallowed by his words, his voice flat and expressionless. 

“I don’t fucking care anymore.”

His head dropped. Like a puppet, Lucas thought. Almost comical. Then Eliott drew himself up, climbing clumsily from the table, and left for the bedroom. 

Lucas held himself, paralysed, heard the light _floomph_ of the bed being landed on, and finally, let out a quivering breath. He felt unable to move - like if he did, something else would break, and push this moment over the edge of the knife it was balancing on. 

Eliott wouldn’t be up for a good 12 hours - he never could get up early after drinking. That, at least, was a comfort - if a bitter one. Lucas had time to compose himself. 

In the movies, this isn’t how it goes. The hero has the perfect response to everything the other characters throw at him, he draws out sadness with wit and charm and depression-therapy-approved solutions until the story ends and everyone has learned something good about themselves and it’s happily ever after. 

And it’s _shit._

Because life, Lucas has learned, isn’t like a movie. There’s no script, no perfect thing to say. When Eliott gets like this, he can spend hours trying to think of the right way to respond, the right encouragement to give. But sometimes, there just isn’t one. Sometimes all he can do is listen, paralysed, while Eliott voices the deep depression within himself. And Lucas knows, he knows he should say something, anything, to help, but he can’t. And the shame, the disappointment that follows is palpable, a bitter taste in his throat.

The bitterness stayed there as he got up mechanically, clearing the table and washing up their glasses. The warm buzz of the alcohol had long since worn off, and he felt sluggish, every movement dragged through thick mud. 

It was even worse when he got into the bedroom, the glow of their bedside lamp deceivingly warm. Eliott was curled tightly on his side of the bed, his mouth half open in deep slumber, a small frown still etched into his forehead. Lucas clambered in beside him, careful not to move the bed too much, and lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling. He could hear Eliott’s slow breaths and tried to match the pace, tethering himself to the noise and fighting back the urge to cry. He knew he shouldn’t let it get to him - he knew Eliott would be okay, that he had his meds, his therapist, that he was doing everything possible to stay in control of his mind. But still, the fear crept in. 

Blinking sluggishly, Lucas rolled over to face Eliott, watching the quiver of his eyelids as he slept. Before he drifted off completely, Lucas reached out a hand and drew his thumb gently over Eliott’s forehead, smoothing out the frown lines. 

The next morning, Eliott didn’t get out of bed. Lucas went to the kitchen and hid their sharpest knives at the back of the tallest cupboard. He needn’t have bothered, though. For the next seven days Eliott stayed curled in bed, like a silent, static, question mark.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I would love to write a second part to this, but, like Lucas, I don't quite know yet what to do. So there might be a little wait.


End file.
